Why did I say anything?

Yesterday might have been the craziest day of the whole crazy week at the school where I work. I shouldn't have said anything here on the blog about hoping for a calm Friday. It was nuts!

Cro asked me in the comments on the last post why we had to have police come to our school multiple times in one week. Well, to begin with, we have an SRO (school resource officer) at our school every day unless there's a shortage at another campus in the district. This is an armed sheriff's deputy with his own office, where he can sit and monitor the cameras stationed all around the school. We all really like the officer they've assigned to us this year. He's a young guy that has a great rapport with the students, in fact, lots of kids try to hang out in his office between classes because he enjoys talking to and joking with them. When there's a fight or a student gets in trouble he's always a voice of calm reassurance to the parents, and he's well liked by them, too. Some of the troubled bigger boys really seem to crave his attention, and it's good for them to have a positive male role model.

Both times when the police were called to our school last week it was when our SRO was off campus, having been sent to other schools for the day due to absences. Both calls came from pissed off parents whose kids had either been in a fight or were having mental health issues along with a discipline referral and they disagreed with how the school was handling it. One father was ranting and raving at me in the front office and I was actually glad when he called the police! 

There was actually a third case of the police being called to the school, on one of the days that our SRO was actually there. This time two extra officers had to be called in because a student disclosed serious physical abuse that was happening to him and his siblings at home. After DSS came out and investigated, they had to come take the student into emergency custody. Thank goodness the boy didn't have to go back to his house--I heard that under his shirt sleeves and pants legs he was just covered in bruises.

In addition to all of the above drama, we had at least four serious fights between students this week. Serious as in bloody mouths and noses and, in the case of two sisters, cold calculated pre-planned attacks where they jumped two other girls unprovoked, at lunch and in a classroom. 

Yesterday morning I was greeted first thing to a private message on the school's Facebook page (which I manage) from a parent alerting me to the fact that anonymous students had created an Instagram page filled with videos of fights at our school! So two of the administrators had to spend the morning figuring out who was responsible. They did eventually catch him. If we could somehow ban cell phones (which all of the kids have) at school  it was save a ton of trouble, but parents would be outraged. They think their kids "need" those phones for safety reasons, but they do nothing but cause trouble. (Side note: one tiny little 7th grade boy got written up this week for having his phone out in class, and when the teacher took it from him he turned to his closest seatmate and said, incredulously, "That bitch took my phone!") Then all morning long I had calls from classrooms asking me to get an administrator for the teacher because of outrageously bad behavior. It was so bad, you guys, that a teacher walked out and quit at lunchtime yesterday! Walked into the office, threw her lanyard and door key fob on my desk, and announced to us all that she was headed to the district office to resign!!!

I don't know what in the holy hell has gotten into the student body at our school, but I really hope they got it out of their systems this past week! It was absolutely nuts! I should never have said anything yesterday morning.